The Four Hundred

IBM this week starts shipping a new version of its Web-to-host software that gives OS/400 shops a decent price break, as long as they don't need to connect to other types of servers. WebSphere Host Integration Solution for iSeries 3.1 is a collection of tools for transforming 5250 screens into HTML. Companies that only need Web access to 5250 applications can now obtain this capability from IBM for between about $200 and $300 per user, about $100 less than the full multiplatform version.

Previously, AS/400 and iSeries shops that wanted more advanced screen-rejuvenation capabilities than the bare-bones tools that ship in iSeries Access--and that wanted to buy Big Blue--had one main option: WebSphere Host Integration Solution. This compendium of software tools provided a wide range of Web-to-host capabilities for the WebSphere Application Server engine. From the green-screen emulator displayed in a browser (Host On Demand) to on-the-fly GUI generation (Host Access Transformation Server) to the creation of new applications that are amalgamations of multiple screens (Host Publisher), WebSphere Host Integration Solution was your shot. (This summary does not include the WebFacing Tool that IBM's Rochester and Toronto labs teamed up to develop. We'll have more on that later.)

IBM Software Group, in Raleigh, North Carolina, developed and sold Host Integration Solution primarily as a multiplatform-tool suite. It could provide connections to mainframe and Unix applications, as well as OS/400 applications. If you ran a heterogeneous IT shop, Host Integration Solution was your toolset. But if your host applications consisted solely of OS/400 servers, and you were using Host Integration Solution, then you had a lot of extra capability that you were paying for but not using.

IBM recognized this disparity and responded last week with the announcement of the first iSeries-only version of Host Integration Solution. The functionality is identical to what you get with the full version of Host Integration Solution 3.1 (also announced last Tuesday), except that you can't connect to mainframe or Unix servers with the less-expensive iSeries version. The software ships this Friday and costs $218 per registered user and $320 per concurrent user (registered users usually being those inside the firewall, while the more flexible concurrent user pricing scheme is generally used when users connect over the Internet). By comparison, the full multiplatform version of the software costs $303 per registered user and $446 per concurrent user.

One of the new capabilities that OS/400 shops will see in Host Integration Solution 3.1 is Host Access Transformation Server (HATS). In terms of Web-to-host functionality, HATS falls between the relatively simple Host On Demand and the more complex Host Publisher. HATS provides a rules-based transformation engine that converts green-screen applications into a graphical interface. HATS works on the fly, and is non-invasive. IBM first introduced WebSphere HATS with the Version 3 release of its WebSphere Host Integration suite, but this is the first release of HATS that will run natively on WebSphere 5.0 running on the iSeries. This is significant because IBM is positioning HATS as a strategic Web-to-host product for the OS/400 environment, which might eventually lead to retiring Host Publisher in favor of HATS, sources say.

In a separate but related development, IBM will begin shipping a trial version of HATS with the refresh of iSeries Access on June 30. HATS Limited Edition will provide a subset of the functionality of the full HATS version (HATS is only available as a component of Host Integration Solution) and is designed to allow customers to begin playing around with it to see how it works. If they want to gain access to all 28 templates, beyond the three included in HATS LE, companies can pay $160 per user to upgrade to the full version of HATS in Host Integration Solution 3.1 (this is the full version, not the iSeries-only version).

HATS provides several benefits for OS/400 shops, and in order to understand them, it's important to bring IBM's WebFacing Tool into the discussion. At the very highest level, HATS and WebFacing Tool do the same thing. They both convert 5250 screens into HTML screens that can be displayed in a Web browser. But the ways in which they do so are very different. WebFacing Tool is, for example, invasive and requires source code, so it's no good if you don't own the source code for the application you want to Web-enable, or for converting system screens to HTML. On the other hand, WebFacing Tool eliminates the need for interactive 5250 CPW processing capacity (on new machines only); whereas HATS does not. Another difference between WebFacing Tool and HATS is how you get it. WebFacing Tool is basically free (it's included with WebSphere Development Studio Client), but you have to pay extra for HATS.

Because HATS and WebFacing Tool were developed by different factions within IBM, there has been a sense of competition between them since HATS debuted last year. However, new developments within Big Blue are expected to resolve some of these differences. IBM recently consolidated its management structure for Web-to-host tools. Before the consolidation, IBM's Software Group in Raleigh and the iSeries-centric development teams in Rochester, Minnesota, and Toronto pretty much did their own things, but they now have the same boss. Mark Heid, of Software Group, is now in charge of development of legacy-integration-related tools in Rochester and Toronto, as well as Raleigh.

The release of an inexpensive iSeries-only version of Host Integration Solution shows that IBM's Software Group is listening to the needs of its AS/400 and iSeries installed base, and not just forcing generic solutions down their throats. One can't overlook the fact that this move follows the arrival of former iSeries general manager Buell Duncan in the WebSphere organization. Hopefully IBM can continue this mood of cooperation to the betterment of its OS/400 installed base.